Most Clicked This Week
- "When I spoke to the prime minister, it was clear that Lauder’s intervention with Trump angered and distressed him"
- "We have enough crazies of our own who were born in the United States; we don’t need to import any more"
- Syria: "The U.S. should do everything in its power to ensure Israel’s success in its growing confrontation with #Iran, which serves U.S. interests, and those of our other Sunni Arab allies"
- The Middle East Masquerade Party
- "Israel’s confusing plethora of small parties actually keeps Ḥaredim and Israeli Arabs, in particular, from becoming too alienated"
- The Saudis Team Up With Israel
- “The visit of two anti-Israel members of Congress is an opportunity for them to see the real Israel, and perhaps learn a thing or two”
- Survey Finds 85% of European Jews Fear Bringing Children to Rosh Hashanah Services
“We know that female hostages were raped during their captivity under control of Hamas,” one Israeli military official said
I24 NEWS
Israeli doctors: Many of 30 released female hostages were assaulted in Gaza
December 22, 2023
Two Israeli doctors who treated freed hostages, as well as an Israeli military official familiar with the matter, confirmed to American newspaper USA TODAY that some released women revealed that they had suffered violent sexual assaults in captivity. All three spoke on condition of anonymity. One of the doctors said that among those aged 12 to 48, many of the 30 suffered sexual assault during their captivity at the hands of Hamas in Gaza. The doctor chose not to detail the specific nature of the assaults, while emphasizing that victims of sexual abuse generally have a four times higher risk of mortality than people who have not suffered such abuse. READ MORE
TIMES OF ISRAEL Released hostage Mia Schem: Everyone in Gaza is a terrorist, I experienced hell In a preview clip of an interview scheduled to be released by Channel 13 tonight, released hostage Mia Schem, 21, says she experienced a Holocaust-like hell during captivity in Gaza. “It’s important to me to reveal the truth about the people who live in Gaza, about who they really are,” she says in the video. “Everyone there is a terrorist.” Schem says she realized she was being held in a family home during her time in captivity and that the whole family was involved with Hamas, including the women and children.
Bradley Cooper and his cast shine in ‘Maestro,’ a film about the life of Leonard Bernstein
TABLET MAG
The Schnoz
Judith Miller
December 17, 2023
…At its core, Maestro is a love story, not dissimilar in some respects to that of Cooper’s directorial debut, the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born. In both films, Cooper (an obviously secure man, still all too rare in Hollywood) lets his female costars shine. Just as Lady Gaga’s stunning performance dominated Cooper’s first film, the true star of Maestro is Carey Mulligan—destined to be an Oscar contender for her riveting portrayal of Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre, Bernstein’s complicit, long-suffering wife. Cooper clearly had no interest in making a comprehensive biopic. What clearly fascinated him was the couple’s complex, loving, and fraught relationship. READ MORE
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics
Tagged Bradley Cooper, Leonard Bernstein
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Take a minute of your day and make a call, save their lives.
GOT A MINUTE? There are still 129 hostages in Gaza; Elderly men and women, fathers, young women, disabled, and chronically ill. According to testimonials from released captives, the hostages are kept without medication, are food deprived, have no access to showers, are forced to watch horrific documentation of the October 7th massacre repeatedly, and are constantly assaulted by their captives. Every second that passes could be their last. They must be released immediately.
Make a call and make a difference. Every call you make to your elected officials, whether you speak to someone or leave a message, is tallied by a congressional aide. Every call counts. Make a quick call or leave a voicemail and demand the immediate release of all the hostages in Gaza. An easy and simple act, just 1 min of your day, is the most effective action you can do. Together, we will bring them home.
Get started here: One Minute a Day
Posted in Israel & Middle East
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Between his mic drop moments and fiery rebuttals of skeptical interviewers, Eylon Levy is learning to master TikTok and confronting Hamas supporters on social media
TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel’s newest, British-born international spokesperson is raising some eyebrows
Avner Hofstein
December 20, 2023
…When Levy was asked about his tweet calling participants in the anti-Israel protest movement in London “rape apologists,” Levy, 32, decided to shake things up. “I told him, if anyone is offended by the term ‘rape apologists,’ I issue the following challenge: For every person attending a pro-Palestine march with the sign ‘I condemn Hamas for raping Israeli women and girls’ and tagging me on Twitter, I’ll donate £10 to UNRWA or any other charity of their choice, and I’ll also publicly apologize to them. Now, I told him, the ball is in their court,” Levy says, speaking with The Times of Israel’s sister site, Zman Yisrael, which shadowed the spokesman for a day. READ MORE
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics
Tagged Eylon Levy, Gaza, Hamas, Palestinians
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Iris Haim conveyed a message to the soldiers who shot her son that she loves and appreciates them, she has no anger or guilt, and she supports them and understands the complex situation they were in
JERUSALEM POST
Mother of killed hostage to IDF soldiers: It’s not your fault
Maariv Online
December 21, 2023
Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam Haim, one of the abductees who was shot dead by IDF fire in the tragic incident in Gaza last weekend. On Wednesday she conveyed a message to the soldiers who shot her son that she loves and appreciates them, she has no anger or guilt, and she supports them and understands the complex situation they were in. Here is her letter to the soldiers involved in the incident. Haim said: “Hello to the 7828th Bislamach Brigade in the 17th battalion, Iris Haim speaking, I am Yotam’s mother, I wanted to say that I love you very much and I hug you from afar, and I know that everything that happened is not your fault at all, but the fault of Hamas, may their names and their memory be forever above the ground.” READ MORE
Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics
Tagged Hamas, Palestine, Palestinians
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Why is the U.S. leveraging its position as Israel’s ally to compel an Israeli defeat at the hands of Iran and its proxies? The answer is politics
JNS
Standing up to the American colossus
Caroline B. Glick
December 18, 2023
…So, by forcing Israel to permit “humanitarian aid” to enter Gaza, Biden and his top officials are compelling Israel to fortify Hamas’s position as the undisputed ruler of the region, who decides who gets what, when and under what circumstances. This U.S. policy undermines Israel strategically and tactically in two additional ways. First, its demand that supplies enter Gaza facilitates Egypt’s policy of blocking Palestinians from leaving the war zone to seek shelter in third countries. This policy in turn requires Israel to remain in a strategic trap where it is deemed responsible for the welfare of an enemy population at war with its people, and of accepting an endgame that either enables Palestinian terrorists from Hamas to continue to rule Gaza or pretends Palestinian terrorists from Fatah, who are Hamas’s partners in the war against Israel, are not terrorists and are not Hamas’s partners, and agree that they should take control over Gaza. READ MORE
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Politics
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“The Palestinians have something better than a state. They have the backing of today’s worldwide power brokers”
TABLET MAG
The Global Empire of Palestine
Lee Smith
December 19, 2023
…The protesters’ goal is hardly a two-state solution or any other dispensation likely to bring peace to both peoples. Rather, the cease-fire they’re calling for is a tactic to strangle Israel’s war effort and thereby empty the Jewish state of Jews. If the Israeli government can’t establish a buffer zone between Gaza and the southern areas attacked on Oct. 7, as well as the northern towns and kibbutzes within Hezbollah’s range, the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have relocated to the center of the country cannot return home. With Iran-backed terrorists using Oct. 7 as a precedent to redraw Israel’s borders in cooperation with U.S., EU, and U.N. bureaucrats, the country will be shaved at the edges until all of it becomes uninhabitable. READ MORE
Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics
Tagged Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Palestinians
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The day after the game, five days after Harvard President Claudine Gay’s disastrous testimony before Congress, I decided to walk the campus to reminisce about my time at Harvard and reflect about what had gone wrong at this once-great university
WALL STREET JOURNAL
An Antisemitic Occupation of Harvard’s Widener Library
US Senator Dan Sullivan
December 15, 2023
…When I walked upstairs to the famous Widener Reading Room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Nearly every student in the packed room was wearing a kaffiyeh. Fliers attached to their individual laptops, as well as affixed to some of the lamps in the reading room, read: “No Normalcy During Genocide—Justice for Palestine.” A young woman handed the fliers to all who entered. A large banner spread across one end of the room stated in blazing blood-red letters, “Stop the Genocide in Gaza.”… One then asked whether I supported a cease-fire in Gaza. I said I didn’t, because I strongly believe Israel had the right both to defend itself and to destroy Hamas given the horrendous attacks it perpetrated against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7. Their tone immediately changed. “You’re a murderer,” one said. “You support genocide,” said the other. “Excuse me, what did you say?” I asked in disbelief. READ MORE
Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics
Tagged antisemitism, Dan Sullivan, Harvard University, Palestine, Palestinians
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Abe Foxman: “DEI is “based on a faulty premise — that racism is a function of oppressed and oppressors and that all white people are oppressors and all people of color oppressed”
JEWISH INSIDER
Former ADL, AJC leaders Abe Foxman and David Harris call for scrapping DEI
Haley Cohen
December 20, 2023
Abe Foxman and David Harris, two former longtime leaders of prominent Jewish communal organizations, called for an end to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy at colleges on Wednesday. In separate statements, the former heads of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee argued that DEI efforts on college campuses should be overhauled because of the major challenges it poses to the liberal understanding of societal aims. Foxman and Harris’ stances contrast with their organizations’ current positions on how to deal with DEI. ADL and AJC leaders told JI this week their organizations are urging universities to better incorporate Jews into the DEI infrastructure, instead of calling on them to dismantle the ideology behind DEI altogether. READ MORE
TABLET MAG Bari Weiss: End DEI It’s not about diversity, equity, or inclusion. It is about arrogating power to a movement that threatens not just Jews—but America itself.
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics
Tagged DEI, Diversity Equity + Inclusion
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ArchitectGuy on Israel 